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Topic: Cake Yeast Dough (Read 34015 times)

Thanks, that gives me a lot more confidence in using the older stuff I have. As you know, the issue is not the cost of CY, its just that for a lot of us it is a 1 week process of ordering and getting it when needed.

Interesting to hear that the "out-of-date" CY gave you resluts that you found superior to "fresh" CY!!

Thanks! It's a firebrick oven. I would definitely change some things if I had to do it over but I am very happy with it. I found some more pics and details which I posted from an older thread. It has about 3-4 inches of insulation (ceramic blanket) and then I put a screen around it then covered it with stucco mix. The deck has a 2 inch ceramic board insulation underneath.

Your pies posted in that link above(http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,16227.msg158726.html#msg158726) look great, I remember them well. Notwithstanding, the pies you're baking today look even better - and not just a little better - they are probably the best NP on the forum. What are the main changes you've made to your dough, work flow, baking, etc. between then and now? It is just upping the heat and shortening the bake time, or are there other important changes you've made?

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"We make great pizza, with sourdough when we can, commercial yeast when we must, but always great pizza." Craig's Neapolitan Garage

Thanks! It's a firebrick oven. I would definitely change some things if I had to do it over but I am very happy with it. I found some more pics and details which I posted from an older thread. It has about 3-4 inches of insulation (ceramic blanket) and then I put a screen around it then covered it with stucco mix. The deck has a 2 inch ceramic board insulation underneath.

Very impressive yet again. I'm an avid DYI'er, probably to a fault. I'd like to use your concept in the future when I add a WFO to my arsenal. That's in the future though, other priorities lie ahead of me now.

Your pies posted in that link above(http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,16227.msg158726.html#msg158726) look great, I remember them well. Notwithstanding, the pies you're baking today look even better - and not just a little better - they are probably the best NP on the forum. What are the main changes you've made to your dough, work flow, baking, etc. between then and now? It is just upping the heat and shortening the bake time, or are there other important changes you've made?

I have made quite a few changes on my workflow and not necessarily on the actual formula. I will try to illustrate below:

1) Fermentation management - I really think this plays a huge role in the changes/improvement in my pizza over the past year or so. Before, my dough would get really active before I even get to the balling stage. By the time I make dough balls, the dough is almost nearing maturation, IMO, which hampers my ability to properly stretch the dough ball (if you notice, the older pizza in the link provided is much smaller than what I make now) and produces too much bubbles which just pop during stretching and burn during baking. Now, I have learned to pay close attention to how the dough behaves during the bulk (visually, there is almost no activity but when you touch it, you will know that the yeast is working on the dough) and ball so I can make the necessary adjustment in temperature, etc. Also, better fermentation management allows me to be more relaxed and give the oven enough time to preheat because I know that my dough balls have a much longer window of usability (usually around 8 hrs at least) without noticing any product degradation.

2) Dough-making skills - Going back to the hand kneading process really allowed me to develop the "feel" for the dough which I think is very important. After the kneading process (it usually take me about 8 mins to initially develop a 3.5kg dough plus a 20 min rest before doing 1 stretch and fold), you can really feel the dough has become much lighter and filled with air. If I go back to making dough with a mixer, I think I will be able to do a much better job than before because I would know the different stages to look for just by touching the dough which can help avoid overdevelopment/underdevelopment of the dough, etc. Right now, I am not too concerned with very accurate measurements because I feel confident that I can make the necessary adjustments depending on what the dough needs (lower/higher temp, ball early, etc.)

3) Oven fire management - I have also changed how I build the live fire inside the oven while baking pizza. Before, I would just preheat, move the coals to the side then place 2-3 logs and let it burn. Now, I would preheat the oven (usually about 4 hrs) and let the coals burn down a bit before I move them to the side. Sometimes, there wouldn't be that much coals left. I would put 3 logs (1 log is big) inside the oven to burn and place the big log on the floor and stack the 2 smaller logs across it. The larger log would protect the pizza from too much heat from the side coming from the coals or fire. The fire will come across the dome and give me a perfect balance of top and bottom heat.

Finally, I realized that I was getting caught up too much with the idea of getting short bake times, leoparding, etc. and it seemed like I was forcing it to bake within 60 secs and putting it too close to the fire to get leoparding when you actually end up burning it instead. When I focused on the fundamentals which I listed above, the short bake times and leoparding came naturally, somehow, and the pizza got really, really good. Now, I am much more comfortable making pizza and I am truly enjoying it.

Your point #3 is very interesting to me, and something I've thought a lot about but done nothing with. Have you considered placing a heavy iron bar up against the coal pile to block some IR? Omid did it once, and his results looked great, but all his pies look great, so it didn't tell me much

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"We make great pizza, with sourdough when we can, commercial yeast when we must, but always great pizza." Craig's Neapolitan Garage

Your point #3 is very interesting to me, and something I've thought a lot about but done nothing with. Have you considered placing a heavy iron bar up against the coal pile to block some IR? Omid did it once, and his results looked great, but all his pies look great, so it didn't tell me much

Very impressive yet again. I'm an avid DYI'er, probably to a fault. I'd like to use your concept in the future when I add a WFO to my arsenal. That's in the future though, other priorities lie ahead of me now.

It is... er... was. I made the cob oven last year and have since moved. It wasn't efficient enough so I decided to donate it back to the mud instead of taking it with me. Fun experience, but will do something more like your oven next time. When I go back to Neo I'm going to do it right.

great looking pies!! just a few questiones, how are you able to keep your dough at a specfic tempeture? Where do you get your cake yeast?

Thank you

Vincent

During this winter season, I just keep the dough in my kitchen countertop where the temperature is between 60-62F. During the summer months, I use a large cooler with 2 or 3 ice packs to keep the temp at around 60F.

I buy my cake yeast at my local deli/bakery. I am very lucky to live very close to an Italian deli/bakery where I buy almost all of my supplies.

just have another question, in step four you say to add the remaining flour, but then as I read more it seems you are adding more as you knead the dough ball. So I wonder how much flour is really being used?

I tried it last night and it seem to be very dry, I could not fold and stretch it even when I let it rest. I used the dough calculator so maybe the amounts were wrong? dont know just trying to figure it out.

During that step, I add the remaining flour from the formula in batches (maybe 1/4 cup or so) so I don't get a large amount of dry flour into the dough. Even if you did add all of the remaining flour, just keep kneading by making a small fold and pressing with your knuckles and it should come together after a few mins. You might find it easier to do this on a countertop and put the flour underneath the dough being kneaded. This way, if you think the dough is getting too dry, just remove it from the flour underneath and keep kneading on a separate area.

Also, the stretch/slap and fold process should only be done after the 20 min rest when you have already incorporated all of the flour and the dough has already relaxed a bit. Finally, feel free to adjust based on what you feel with the dough during the kneading process. There really is no set formula. It all depends on how the dough feels like. If you think the dough is getting too dry, don't add all of the flour and vice versa. I would prefer to not let the dough get too dry because it is much harder to incorporate additional water than flour in the dough especially using your hands.

I'm using caputo (red bag.) epic failure with the dough last night! I think too much cake yeast, Ive got some Issues with my digital scale, I have the MY Weigh kd 8000, when i set it to grams it does not have the capability of showing tenths.

The bulk process was no problem, so I then balled the dough then went to bed. Woke up the next morning to find a lot of activity in the dough, thought to my self this isn't going to be good, being that I wasn't going to start making pizza till 6:30 pm. Well needless to say by then, way to much activity with no rise when I put the pizza on the deck (780 degrees)

do you have any experience with this type of scale? I do like the bakers % feature, whats the saying "when all else fails, read the directions"

I'm using caputo (red bag.) epic failure with the dough last night! I think too much cake yeast, Ive got some Issues with my digital scale, I have the MY Weigh kd 8000, when i set it to grams it does not have the capability of showing tenths.

The bulk process was no problem, so I then balled the dough then went to bed. Woke up the next morning to find a lot of activity in the dough, thought to my self this isn't going to be good, being that I wasn't going to start making pizza till 6:30 pm. Well needless to say by then, way to much activity with no rise when I put the pizza on the deck (780 degrees)

do you have any experience with this type of scale? I do like the bakers % feature, whats the saying "when all else fails, read the directions"

I had the same issues when I was starting to make pizza. IMO, the most difficult part of this process is managing the fermentation so the dough balls are ready when you need them and can still be used hours after you are done.

How much dough do you usually make? I also do not use a scale capable of measuring less than 1g. I usually make dough requiring a little more than 1g so it's not an issue for me but if you need to use less than that, you can mix for example 90gr of water and 10gr of cake yeast. If you need 0.5gr of yeast, just take 5gr of the water/yeast mixture and add that to your formula. Just make sure you adjust the water in your original formula so it does not mess up your hydration. Also, make sure that you dissolve the yeast thoroughly to ensure even distribution and mix it again right before adding it to your dough. You can scale the water/yeast mixture down if you want but I think using a larger amount is more accurate.

I had some old CY and wanted to try a 30 hour cool ferment because I want to be like Marlon and Craig when I grow up. I kept the dough at mostly 65F but had to slow down fermentation for a few hours until the oven was ready, so they were in the fridge for 2 hours. I just need to adjust the amount of CY.

Texture on these turned out great. Pics taken on my samsung cell phone.